CAPTAIN MARVEL,

THE WANDERLING, BEGGARMAN, THIEF

Below is a graphic of the cover for Captain Marvel Adventures, Number 97, June of 1949. On the cover Captain Marvel is depicted as being erased. As it has turned out, that specific issue was of the upmost importance in relation to the history of comic books --- AND me.

History notwithstanding, for me, the method or way in which I myself obtained a copy of the comic book as a young boy in the first place is a story all its own. Even up to this day, unlike how Captain Marvel on the cover is being erased, for me, how I got a copy of the comic book has never been erased.(see)

As for the history side of things, by clicking the "see" link at the end of the sentence it will take you to a page related to that major comic book history I mention --- the actual legal battle that occurred between the owners to the rights of Superman and the creators of Captain Marvel.(see)

Cowboy Code of the West, I stuffed a comic book I wanted under my shirt and walked out. My uncle, after learning what I did, made me go back, return the book, apologize, and work it off most of the day Saturday around the drug store cleaning up and doing odd jobs."(source)

For a few years out of my life as a young boy I lived on a ranch in the Mojave Desert owned by my Stepmother, who at the time was quite wealthy. The school my brothers and I attended was far enough from the ranch that in order to get back and forth we rode the bus. However, regardless of the distance, sometimes after school we walked or got off the bus at some other kid's place, then walked home.

On one of the days we were walking back a bunch of us kids of various ages and grade levels stopped by the Palmdale Pharmacy, the only drug store in town. Some of us had money, some of us didn't. After we left the store one of the boys my age I knew for sure didn't have a penny on him was eating a Hostess cake --- a sort of sweet folded over sponge-like half circle cake filled with some kind of unnamable white cream. When I asked him where he got the money to buy it he told me he just took it by stuffing it in his shirt when nobody was looking and walked out without paying, a trick his older brother taught him. Not only had I never heard of such a thing I never thought of such a thing --- and if my older brother or cousin did such things they never shared it with me.

I had been taken by Captain Marvel and his adventures for several years, obtaining, saving, buying, and trading for every new or different copy I could get my hands on, along with every Marvel related offer or toy I could get as well, especially so my favorite, the Flying Captain Marvel, of which I had several, a few never opened that I wish I still had.

(please click image)

Anyway, some days after the incident with the boy and the Hostess Cake, with me being back at the drug store and without ever discussing it with anybody, from that germ of the idea from my schoolmate, I stuffed a comic book, a brand new copy of Captain Marvel Adventures, Number 97, June of 1949, in my shirt and walked out --- in turn resulting in all the downstream ramifications. My uncle, after learning what I did, made me go back, return the book, apologize, and work it off most of the day Saturday around the drug store cleaning up and doing odd jobs.

PALMDALE PHARMACY WHEN I WAS ON THE RANCH, LATE 1940'S(please click image)

A few years later, still a young boy but a couple of years older and traveling with my Uncle in the desert southwest, again, and apparently in a lesson unlearned, believe it or not I did the same thing --- only this time, instead of a comic book, while visiting the now long gone Meteorite Museum near Meteor Crater in Arizona operated by a longtime friend of my uncle, Dr. H.H Nininger, I pocketed a rare meteorite.

AMERICAN METEORITE MUSEUM, WINSLOW ARIZONA, CIRCA 1948

THE REMAINS OF THE NININGER MUSEUM AS IT APPEARS TODAY

CRATER RIM SEEN ON THE HORIZON THROUGH ONETIME WINDOW

Visiting the museum is both one of my fondest childhood memories and one of my worst. Fondest because it was the first time I ever saw so many meteorites in one place and actually given the chance to hold them in my bare hands. The worst because for reasons stronger than me, when no one was looking I took a beautiful near palm-size meteorite fragment said to have come from the surface of Mars and at onetime revered by a segment of the Native American population and stuck it in my pocket, keeping it as I walked out --- with the following results as found on the Nininger page:

"After a couple of days I was so racked with guilt I broke out in a rash or hives of some sort and in tears admitted to my uncle what I had done. He made me slip the meteorite back amongst the other meteorites just as I found it, telling me for a person such as myself even white light shields could not ward off the ramifications of such actions related to a culture's holy item, even if that culture no longer existed. Unless my uncle told him, to my knowledge Dr. Nininger never gained knowledge of my 'youthful indiscretion'"

After a few years my easy going ranch life was over, my dad and stepmother divorcing and the ranch sold. I was placed with a foster couple wherein almost immediately I began plotting on a workable way to successfully accomplish running away. When the right time arose I packed up a few things and took off in a search for my now ex-stepmother, ending up in the desert not far from the location of our old ranch.

On the next closest ranch down the dirt road from the ranch where I used to live lived a much older boy than me who had five sisters, two of which were right around my age with all the rest older. The boy collected every cowboy-western comic book he could get his hands on. He had hundreds of them all neatly stacked in brand new turned-up orange crates made into shelves in his room, each book in pristine condition and always kept in order by title and chronological by month, date, and number. I used to go to his place whenever I got a chance to check out his sisters in various stages of dress and not so much dressed, otherwise the brother and I sitting around all day long reading comic books.

After running away and arriving in town too late in the day to search down my stepmother I went to the ranch where the kid with all the comics and five sisters lived looking for a place to hole up for the night. Without any hesitation they welcomed me in.

Not unlike most families in the early 1950s they had no television set, so after a little time in the living room everybody retreated to their respective rooms or sleeping areas. The mother and father put a few blankets and a pillow on the floor in the brother's room creating a nice little space for me to crash for the night. The brother and I immediately began reading comic books with the brother digging out one specific one he insisted on me reading. He said the first time he saw it he thought of me specifically and always wished he could share the comic with me because of a story I told him once he never forgot, a story about a flying machine I built based on a Leonardo Da Vinci design that I actually flew.

The book was issue #4 from the DC comic publishing group dated March-April 1951 called Tomahawk with a cover story titled The Flying Frontiersman, a story in which the main character, a Daniel Boone type frontiersman named Tomahawk, in 1771, uses a flying machine based on a Da Vinci design to battle a renegade Native American bent on stirring up a war between the Indians and settlers. Struggling to finish reading the story because I was so tired I closed my eyes and soon fast asleep. The next morning I ate breakfast with all five sisters and the brother and when I was done I hooked a ride into town with the father and never saw any of them again. So too, never again were comic books or meteorites ever misappropriated.

Leading up to the 1940s, throughout the war years and those that immediately followed, for whatever reason, there was a whole slew of 'Captain' named super heroes --- Captain Marvel, Captain America, Captain Midnight, and to a lesser degree Captain Flag, Captain Commando, etc., etc.

All of the Captains, using a variety of mediums of regular radio programing, comic books, and movie serials, took on all the proportions of real life, giving hope, strength, and inspiration to thousands and thousands of war weary families and kids, as loved ones fought, were wounded, and died for our freedom in the air, the seas, and the farflung battlefields of distant lands.

While it is true Captain Marvel was right up there for me during those years, it was Captain Midnight, primarily because of his decoder badges, the Code-O-Graphs, that was my favorite, followed in a close second by Buck Rogers, primarily because of his U-235 Atomic Pistol. Buck Rogers was a captain too, by the way. According to the story line he had been a pilot in World War One reaching the rank of captain before being mustered out at the end of the war.

It is really not too clear to me why DC selected Captain Marvel to file a lawsuit against. Most of their complaints about similarities between the two characters, while possibly true on one stretching hand, sort of looses it on the other --- at least as I see it.

There were any number of 1940s comic book superhero types that borderlined up against similar traits. At one end there was the Black Condor and at the other, an almost duplicate in abilities and skills as Captain Marvel, was the Green Lama. Now true, in both of their cases neither reached the unparalleled heights of circulation and sales as the Adventures of Captain Marvel, they did have, and especially so the Green Lama, equal if not advanced skills. In the end none of them caught on in the people's minds like Superman, although in my own particular case other than Captain Midnight and his decoders, the Green Lama had the most impact.

Now, as mentioned in the third paragraph at the top of the page, history notwithstanding, for me, the method or way in which I myself obtained a copy of the comic book as a young boy in the first place is another story. Even up to this day, unlike how Captain Marvel on the cover is being erased, for me how I got a copy of the comic book has never been erased.(see)

Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.